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Improving YouTube Removals.

One major problem I have with the YouTube removal process is the robot-maintained content ID system which lacks human reasoning and thus, a consistency in determining what a Fair Use of copyrighted content is. The result is sporadic YouTube removals and unwarranted DMCA notices.

The impact is disastrous: links to videos are disabled, comments and hit counts deleted and networks disrupted. It’s difficult to demonstrate the importance of remixing on participatory culture and within media literacy when you can’t access the videos. More importantly, if a remix video can’t be found, it’s political or subversive message can’t reach it’s audience and it’s now absent from the canon.

I think Kevin’s mockup is a great start. We can go even further, though. When you upload a video and agree to YouTube’s terms of use, there should be a box to check off for Fair Use of copyright content and then a menu to justify it as a parody, commentary, critique, homage, etc. If removed, disputed, and restored, I’d like to see a notice that attributes it’s re-appearance to Fair Use.